COAS+GOF2.0v14b gameplay(A Ship log)+BASIC RULES OF ALL MODDED GAMEPLAY! :D

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

BASIC GAMEPLAY RULES OF MODDED GAMES

For anyone, who's not a lead programmer
and want to try out basically -any- mod. The rules ensure that you encounter as less neurotic breakdown as possible, and have the most stable gameplay you can...


1.: ALWAYS use A LOT of saves. Save very often please. If you need to write on your existing saves, please start with the oldest one... You can solve a gameplay breaking error almost every time if you reload a state when it was not present ^^

2.: If you do not know what you are doing, please do not write in to game files. Even if you read a nice cheat online (shame on you!) and you follow the guide how to do it. The reason is, that modders -modify- stock game files, so maybe the code you are using -will- break the game, as it is NOT the same version anymore!

3.: The SAME goes for ingame consoles, debugger features.

4.: If you HAVE to modify a modded game anyway, copy all it's directories, make a backup copy of it. (you can leave out sound files, and textures, if you don't touch them)

5.: No matter what you do, MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF THE FILE you are trying to modify.

6.: Always have a save -before- your meddling

7.: -always- read the full description and readme of the MOD. Maybe that's isn't a bug, you just don't know how it works ^^


Gentlemen Of Fortune related rules:

1.: First of all, if you are not a modder, or not advised by one to do so, NEVER touch the reinitialisation feature in the mod options menu, AND never touch F11 -please- XDDD

You can spare yourself ....a lot.. .. of crying ^^



Why a GOF gameplay topic?

The reason I started this thread is simple enough: playing a game without bugs is one thing, but at the end, how realistic is the feeling? So basically Im not hunting for bugs in this gameplay (have another thread for that) but simply sharing what I've encountered, and maybe if I dont like something, how hard is the game, etc.

Consider it a beta test log(?)


Started the game as:

-CAPTAIN BLOOD

-Captain difficulty (roughly mediocre)

-Corsair template

-Tactical Sea battles

-Exp. gathering is set to the highest (I know how hard community mods tend to be... XD)


In the GOF mod list in options:

-"No Distant encounters" set to OFF, the reason is: VERY RARE was the case in history when a ship only realised that someone is gaining on it, when it was too close to evade....

I like to have my chances to outrun the fellow.

-"Cannon Damage" is set to COAS default. The reason is:

No matter how hard some guys say here that a few full broadsides barely hurt a ship and thats realistic, this is not true. We talk about wooden structures, attacked by heavy, metal balls, lots of the times hitting -under the waterline-, (instant flooding, what can be countered, but not if it repeats itself...) historical encounters sometimes was really short... Not to mention when a chain shot succesfully ripped down half the rigging of a mast...

If Im going to find it too easy, Im going to put it to inbetween, or GOF default, but thank you, attacking a small barque with 14 8lb cannons for more than a quarter of an hour is enough for me to feel it realistic ^^ to rip it down to -half-.. ... of it's hull, crew, or rigging...

All other mod options is enabled.
----------------------------------------





Color codes in the gameplay:

RED : cool new feature of GOF 2.0 v14b, or a suspicion of one, or a bug-avoiding gameplay suggestion!

GREEN : naming of a new ship

BLUE : A serious recommendation, or gameplay hint- ways to survive.

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

MILD SPOILERS!!!!!!!

The year was 1698,
Poor Captain Blood was Immediately renamed Daniel Wolf, even before his capture.

(!!!!took long enough, since GOF is lacking the old feature of simply clicking on your name to change it, had to fix 343745725228 quest and other text files...)

Started the game, went through the main quest without any CTD or bug until I was ALMOST able to leave slavery behind, when I encountered a bad texture error on the spanish ship, (do not count as a gameplay bug, but still, disliked it)
and after a makeshift attempt to fix it, had the ...wonderful.... idea to initiate a full "reinit" ingame... ...

(First of all, if you are not a modder, or not advised by one to do so, NEVER touch the reinitialisation feature in the mod options menu, AND never touch F11 -please- XDDD)

And after the reinit, also had the wonderful idea to -save on my only other save-..... (please, always use tons of saves....)

The texture remained the same, (fixed it afterwards, not important- going to be in a future patch) and it seemed that nothing happened with the reinit.

.... Seemed...

When I reentered the city, the Arabella ship was -totally missing from the port-.... Since I was only playing Capt. Blood once, many years ago, I was thinking that theres no problem at all. Eradicated all the spanish soldiers, and... Stucked.

After many hours I looked up some info, and found out where should I go, but there was an invisible barrier keeping me out on the shore. Of course...
Since the ship is not there, (being a static map object, not a real ship) that means that THIS version of Barbados harbor is the normal one, where you -can't- enter the water.

This was the point when I realised that with the full reinit I've broken the quest... And also missing any saves before it...
...

End of day 1 ^^

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Fixing texture errors doesn't ever require a reinit because there is no code involved at all.

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

Fixing texture errors doesn't ever require a reinit because there is no code involved at all.

Now I know that I replaced the textures first, and got blood eyes as nothing changed, as it -should- so I tried the reinit... (the solution is in the other thread- simply wasn't a ship- but a map object (duh))

I had to re-learn everything I knew about the Storm engine from scratch at the past 2 days good old brain damage...

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

Second Capt. Blood attempt:

Had a wonderful experience of rushing through the Capt. Blood story in roughly 3-4 hours, keeping the game on 3x speed XDD as now I knew where to go, what to ask (from the first, lost gameplay.... Still, 4 hours for the devil... AND a full day for him before... )

Luckily, managed to reach the point where I needed to sneak past the spanish in to the water... (naturally killed them all instead, to learn fencing...)

So, stop here a little bit, and talk about combat, and the skill system.

Modders usually (God bless those who do) aim for -more realism-.
The problem is, that most of them already beaten the game in many times, and they usually make modifications scaled to their experience: ROCK HARD... And VERY slow to progress skills. A lot of gamers try the supermods first, or with very few experience. Including me, no matter Im a modder, as I never progressed past half the gameplay in POTC, and never reached one third in COAS... Lack of time. So, for me COAS Community Mod 3.15 almost proven lethal...

GOF 2.0 on the other hand promises a relieving experience, given to the first days of testing:

By starting on a mediocre difficulty level, and setting experience gathering on the highest, (maybe it does not affect the modified system, but had to make sure I have a headstart ) I managed to reach lvl 5 after roughly a day of gameplay. As a lvl 5, -sometimes- I manage to slay a lot of lvl 5 soldiers alone, sometimes even a bunch of 12's before I bleed out, or win, but sometimes a lone lvl 4 kills me... For me, this is very entertaining, and realistic, and have to adapt to the situation, find a narrow passage to fight only one, use everything I have: and I still had a chance to solve -everything- yet.

Hats off before the creators of the original GOf, and the GOF 2.0,
either I started the game with good parameters, or the GOF is a very balanced, and dynamic supermod.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teKGPxr86ME

(Mood music for this post)

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

I do not spoiler further about the starting quest, lets just say, that I was able to take the ship on a second attempt, and managed to keep alive 3 out of my 4 main men- Including those who join.

Managed to painstakingly s(n)ail out of port, and leave behind the pursuers.

First (my naivity) I sailed to one of the French ports, and managed not to get killed on the first sight, my flags remained british and not changed to pirate after the sixth attempt... There I realised that I can only sell the frigate for 0 gold, even if I appoint Pitt as a treasurer, as he have 30 points for that.

So, (naively) I reloaded, and sailed to the nearest pirate colony, just to realise that they don't have a shipyard. Another reload, and ended up in Tortuga.

Well, there at the shipyard wasn't any good ships to swap to, and the price for my frigate remained 0 even after the repairs.

But at least the pirate colony proven a good start, as there I was able to spend -almost all my money- (41k) to buy a diplomat to get off my british bounty... (turboed with a hefty sum from card and dice games, It seems my cognitive logic was improved by the years, as I do not have a really high Success (luck) skill ingame)
Of course I had a bounty, what kind of swashbuckler gives a hefty sum of 30k to a moneylender after a quest when he can keep it? Who knew that I have to buy my freedom for 41k later....

I had to sit and wait 15 days there before the bounty was cleared, but at least I was able to raise my money to 10k with more gambling, and get the Atila quest.

Then came the idea to sell only the frigate's guns, get a hefty price, and then scrap the frigate for 0 gold...

Bought a tartan, then we sailed for a british port, running for my life from pirates, bloodthirsty armies, and merchants, and all kind of animals riding debris...

After 7-8 attempts to enter port I was able to land, without recognised as a pirate.
I think, in Nevis.

There I realised that WHAT IS THE PERMIT FROM THE WEST INDIA COMPANY IS GOOD FOR:

When an english soldier ("lobster" by their red coat) stopped me that my ship is really suspicious, There was an option to say: "I have a West Indies docking permit, you knob!" (Erm... Something similar) but it was expired after 60 days.

Managed to buy a BERMUDA SLOOP, as Im in love with the design, a true historical pirate vessel. The only problem is that it had 6 guns.... 2 on each side, 1-1 to forth, and rear.

NAMED HER: "RABID".


No matter, I started to hunt. Just to realise that even the smallest vessel outnumber my crew by a LARGE margin, and kill us all.

(with 6 4lbs cannon I did not attempted to shoot, as half a hour test battle resulted in one millimeter of lost enemy crew... I aimed straightly to board...)

Then I got a rise in blood pressure, and stuffed every poor soul I can into my tub, and restarted my efforts.

After a few sad experience with Class 7 vessels I've found a Bounty type French merchant, and after 2-3 attempts, managed to board it.

Sailed back to port, realised that the prize do not worth swapping to it, so I selled it.

Another nice surprise was, when I realised that IF I have enough navigation skill for the prize, and a good treasurer, I don't need to strip the guns, as their price is EXACTLY calculated into the ship's selling price in GOF 2.0 v14b !!!

Gained at least 24k from the ship and the cargo. ("TOOLS" mostly)

After taking some minor quests, and more gambling, I was sadly able to muster only 44 hands instead of the 63? max stuffable...
Sailed to another english port, I think Antigua. Immediately followed by a dumb Heavy Lugger pirate ship, attacked by the fort, and another english vessel.

It was immediately started to retreat (It was very nice, never saw anything like this before, Im not sure it's the CM 3.20 base, the GOF 1.x, or the GOF 2.0 material)

So I had to make a very tight run after it, tacking heavily against the wind from the prey's direction, managed to catch it VERY FAR away from the coasts.
Managed to crawl to it's side against the wind, without losing distance, and then fastly started to blaze my cherry poppers, that maybe I can damage slightly it's sails.

Another surprise by the AI, It's realised that Im sitting in a Bermuda Sloop, armed with wits only, and turned against me very fast instead of running.

I had to make several attempts to survive it's inevitable boarding party, but managed to grasp the ship finally.

(again, the dynamic fighting AI gave me chance to reach the unreachable. Though it was tough enough)

The problem was, that I had ZERO crew remaining in both vessels.
And since the minimal crew was missing, map travel, or fast travel was disabled

So we had to tack in 1 knot speed in manual sailing to Antigua port. Took 30 minutes in 8x time compression...

But I was able to make it home, and swap to the heavy lugger, and sell my beloved bermuda Sloop.

Swapped the 4lbs culverins to 8bs cannons on the lugger, just to realise that I can't mount them...

A visual trace, like some text in it's description would proven helpful to know that it can ONLY mount culverins

No matter, reload, spent alot of money, and bought 12 8lbs culverins.

NAMED THE HEAVY LUGGER: "THE FOX"

At antigua, I was able to gamble some money on cards and dice, after selling the cargo, and personal trinkets.
Also, as my 60 day West Indies permit ended, I had to evade the Lobsters heavily... Even managed to slip by the backs of two soldiers guarding
the Governor's Residence. So I took a job for king and country, to seek out and kill a group of bandits in the jungle. Managed to find, and kill them with my two officers, Pitts, and that ugly gunner. So -I think- my reputation is increased a bit, towards getting a privateers license in the future.

Another possible feature, but I can't be sure: it seemed, that until I finally visited the governor a second time, getting rid of the succesful quest, the soldiers failed to recognise me as suspicious.

A nice Brigantine became avaliable at the Antigua shipyard, so (after putting my navigator into treasurer role again) I spent all my money to sell the poor, untested Fox, and grab it.

How to keep your cargo and crew when you barely don't have enough money for the next ship:

I selled one of the luggers cannons, now having the money, I bought the Brigantine as second ship, swapped ship, trasnferred everything, and selled the poor lugger.

Here I stand now, selled the Brigantine's 4lb cannons, and bought 16 8lb ones.

Not yet named her, have to think about some furry predatory name, which is bigger than a fox, but still not a wolf ^^

(Mood music for this post)

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Hehe. It is not furry but Surprise might be appropriate.

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

Sailed for Marigold, under a dutch flag.

Yep, I bought the "hoist the dutch flag" skill as my first ship skill, as I have British, so I can (in most cases...) sail into English, and French ports, as they are at peace, and with the dutch flag I can sail (if im lucky) into Spanish, and Dutch ports.

And

NAMED THE BRIGANTINE: "MAD CUB"
after a long consideration of Surprise but this ship is what it seems, a not very agile, but fast Brigantine of 16 8lb guns

Hauled in 114 poor sailors into the hold, and sailed out to hunt.
Run into frontly a lone pirate vessel aiming to take us, proven to be a Yacht, by the name of Jolly Deadman.

I loaded grape shots,

Changed several broadsides, ripped down it's crew to a half, and after the first initially succesful boarding on deck and inside the captains cabin, I've taken her as a prize.

Had 53 souls remaining from the crew, we sailed back to Marigot island, where I was able to sell the cargo, and the yacht for almost 30k of gold,
with the help of Mr. Pitt as a treasurer. (sparing some medicine, grape shots,rum, and food)

Sadly by contracting all remaining hands on the island to produce a compliment of 107, 14.000 from the 30k was spent on recruiting. A little more than 14k remained, enough for one months of pay for my two officers and the 107 souls.

The mood of the men were raised from Horrible to Bad by the prize taking. Less chance to hang me from the yardarm... ^^

After several unsuccesful attempts to gamble more money on dice, reloaded, and called it a day...

(Mood music for the post)

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

Launched a hunt from Marigold, ran into some quite unpleasant expereinces XD first a spanish merchant, guarded by two strong ships, second attempt, I joined a fight between an english navy brig, and a private CORVETTE (as the game names a light frigate Corvette, they were overwhelming)

I was very upset that the game handled BOTH the pirate, and my own nation's ship AS AN ENEMY. No matter that I joined the fight to help the english ship...
Somehow, if I join ANY fight, both sides handles me as an -enemy-. Why?

I gave it a try, sweeped the brig from my brigantine with a few grape shot broadsides, and boarded her. The enlgish redcoats (lobsters) did a quick work on all of my crew members, but surprisingly enough, depsite the very few healing potions i've had, I was managed to slay the remaining men, around ten at least (they were ranged from lvl 4 to lvl10) and their captain, and grasped the brig. So far so good, but the Corvette was closed up on us, and grappled my ship... We had seconds onboard... The level of the pirates was 300 XD ... Wich is realistic enough, as they were masses compared to our compliment.

So, reloaded, and tried the hunt again.

This time I was ran into a pirate, a lonely Heavy Brigantine (the class was oddly enough called Brigantine Heavy) named BELL OF REVENGE, managed to rip down a bit it's crew with grape shot, and boarded it. First they were killed all of my men AND me, but at the second attempt we were killed them very fast, alot of my men remaining breathing, and healthy.

At the grasping screen I was glad to see, that 56 of my men remained from the starting 107. Filled the grasped ship to a little more than minimal compliment, and was sure that we can fast travel or map travel after this.

AND HERE COMES THE MOST ANNOYING "FEATURE" OF THE GOF 2.0 :

After the grasping screen, the remaining shots from my last broadside ripped though the grapsed ship, AND it's own full broadside was activated late -also-. So we shot eachother to pieces... The results was... kind of realistic on this zero distance, between 8lb cannons, and their 12lbs culverins: they had 1 men remaining, and my ship had 4.....

And, naturally, then I was able to save at first opportunity...

So here I was, with null compliment on both ships, unable to fast or map travel... Luckily enough I was able to make out a faint silhouette of land at south... And by my calculations it could be only Antigua. So I started to sail there on 8x time compression, heavily tacking against the wind, coming straightly from our bow...

The voyage was almost a full hour.

Finally we reached land, and from a "regular map" item I was able to make out that the harbor should be at it's north-western side. I sailed there, even more heavily tacking, just to find a finely detailed land, and an EMPTY BEACH, without any fort or town. First I was sure that the map is mistaking, and without checking the beach, I sailed around the island. Just then I realised that the disabled fast travel still does not offering any land location, eg. beach, harbor, where I cant travel of course, but in normal circumstances they should show up anyway... So I made it back to the empty beach, just to find out that the system does not offer me to anchor...

Then I realised, that Im in a right place, just the location is logically not there. Fine 3d island, but no ports, or beaches to land on.... by it's unique shape, it WAS Antigua, cannot be any other island.

When I was required our location ID at the F11 menu, it was still showing Marigold....

I tried everything, raised another flag, waited enough in time compression to switch from night to day and back, (lights were OK) went to the cabin, and slept until morning, but nothing changed. FIrst I was able to teleport to Saint Johns town using the "Sentjons_Town, reload" debug command, but I was stuck in the water 2 meters from the pier...

So I had no other choice but to use the F8 command in F11 menu, teleport to tavern, wich is ALWAYS Saint John's pub, wich was a lucky case in my position...
Managed to sell the cargo and ship, gathering more than 30k of gold. Recruited all men at the island, making a low compliment of 67 men, spending alot of gold. Still, alot remained, I think 49k.

So, this was the events of yesterdays night.

(It seems that the "direct sailing" have a big, game breaking error here, placing the island right, but missing all of it's locations, and it does not register your ship's position either. I tried direct sailing with success on the start of the career, when I had null compliment, but in that case we were mutch closer to an island, and fast sailing targets of the island was avaliable since the start of the sailing, just unable to use them due to minimal compliment)

Anyone knows about this error, or how to fix it?

(Mood music for this post)

 

[Hylie Pistof]

As far as I know that is a feature of the stock game and was never fixed. You can only sail between islands that are close together like Tortuga and Hispaniola. Possibly Hispaniola to Cuba and to Puerto Rico.

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

Thank you. That is a serious issue, as either I sink the grasped ship, or not, sometimes I do not have enough crew to sail my own ship to fast sail, or to map, wich means a "worst case scenario"-like "reach the first dry land" situation- where the only thing I can do is to sail real time... (plus 8x)

I have to think about a lame workaround.

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

Also we have to stop the guns firing late.. Im thinking about a built-in timed invincibility, as we have a "god mode cheat", wich can be disabled after certain seconds after boarding.

Edit:

A tad offtopic, but Im just yet to implement the timed invincibility after boarding, to prevent "late" broadsides, ripping your crew and ship from the CAPTURED ship... I know where to put the "god mode on", My only concern is to where to put the "god mode off"... A timed script would be the best- but I've forgot a little bit how to do it. ^^ Also Im curious about the god mode also protects your captured ship, or just the one youre sailing on...

(tried god mode with a fort, my ship was in flames, had several hits, but lost no men, nor hull, nor sails)

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

I have a clue I think... Wish me luck ^^

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I seem to be wrong about sailing between islands. I just direct sailed from Port-Au-Prince to Tortuga and when I got there the town and fort were there, but there was no flag and I could not drop anchor.

There seems to be a set distance at which you can no longer direct sail successfully and that voyage was just out of reach. Methinks I could direct sail to the Pirate port of La Vega from Tortuga ok. I will try that soon.

EDIT: Nope. I direct sailed from Tortuga to La Vega and while the town was there I could not drop anchor. 1000 curses!

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

Argh... Thats a HUGE "oops" we have to correct somehow, and that's the kind of error I do not even know how -should- work at the first place ...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

You should check the island GM files with the GM Viewer.
If I remember correctly, those models actually have the rest of the islands in there too.
Which means there was never any genuine Direct Sail to begin with.
Rather, you managed to Sail to part of the island model that looks like the next Island bit really isn't.

Remember how Eddy said that Direct Sail couldn't be done in the engine?
He was one of the actual CoAS developers.
I think our old modders here are the only ones who ever did it and they only did for PotC.

My personal opinion: you might as well forget your wish of doing it in CoAS.
It isn't going to be easy and the only way would probably be too port the PotC feature that does it.
Reloads will be required one way or another because you need to actually get to the real next Island model.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Isn't that the way POTC does it? You sail to the next island boundary and it loads that island at the "land ho" call.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

PotC does. CoAS doesn't. There is no reload so you remain in the originating Islands model even if you reach the next Island.

 

[Capt. Daniel Wolf]

Well, the reload can be called at any moment ^^ just need to know to call it to -where-....
I let this one sleep for now, and study a little bit Potc's directsail if I have the time.

Until that I may need to produce a half-wit solution for those who barely grappled a ship and have only a handful of men to sail it, to reach dry land....
It's possible, just was very hard to do XD but in reality, we should place a barrier there, to stop a player and only 4 of his officers emergency-sail anything bigger than a brig...

Im thinking about an autodialog with one of the officers (after the game was forced to load the cabin after the end of boarding) for the officer to say: "we forced to sail for the first dry land, as we do not have enough hands"...
Or an "escape to nearest island" icon if the minimal crew is not met after a boarding,
And simply reload the current theater, (as far as I see, on the middle of the ocean my location was still "Marigot") and putting the ship somewhere near the given island.

I just don't know how to "fine tune" the coordinates of a ship / player in a given location.... We don't wan't it to pop up right in harbor, (and maybe got shot to pieces after failing a flag check) just to be "Near". (logically there)